We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Ann Lathan Kerzner, the Executive Director at Jonas Music Services, a one-of-kind digital marketing agency. 

At Jonas Music, they understand the universal appeal of music and the power of well-crafted songs that truly captivate our attention. Unlike traditional agencies, they are not just a team of writers, designers, and web developers. They combine the expertise of trained musicians and professional marketing experts, seamlessly integrating these elements for your benefit.

Jonas Music is a one-stop destination for unparalleled music and marketing services. Let’s find out how they climbed the ladders of success in this competitive marketing world.

Introducing Jonas Music Services and What Sets Them Apart from Other Marketing Agencies

“Our company has two arms – one handles entertainment marketing (Jonas Music Services), and another takes small and midsize business marketing (True Change Marketing). While the basic tenets of marketing always apply, our team can draw together different industries with an in-depth knowledge of each. We are also unique because we are a one-stop shop as we service print, digital, web design, video, graphics, social, advertising (including geofencing marketing, native, and audio podcast ads), and even direct mail. Jonas Music Services and True Change Marketing are white-label partners for several other companies. We offer wholesale pricing to partners who can fully rebrand our services from top to bottom. These strategic partnerships have been crucial for the growth of our business and have allowed us to expand the reach and efficiency of our services. We are also a women-owned and family-oriented company. We always work closely with our team to support their time off and family needs. We treat our clients like family, too, and always try to bring a smile and a touch of extra kindness.”

The Inspiration Behind the Creation of Jonas Music Services; the Company’s Initial Mission & Vision

“The company began while I was home caring for my infant son 18 years ago. I loved being a mom but needed something to keep my mind busy. I had been doing a little marketing consulting for friends, and one of them encouraged me to set up a website and do it for real! I designed our first website on my laptop while nursing my son. The company is named after him, Jonas, and it’s grown up as he has. Our initial vision was to work only in entertainment marketing and to provide a space to unite an overall marketing strategy for artists. One of the problems in marketing is that there are so many specialty areas that clients need one thing from one company, another item from another company, and another from a third company, and on and on. The challenge is that there needs to be a unified, organic vision and a place where someone can guide a client’s client strategies they may not even know. Over the years, I found that clients thought marketing was simply googling various companies and combining multiple services. We introduce clients to strategies they may not have heard of that can support their business. Over the years, that shifted from entertainment industry work into small and midsize business marketing.”

Early Challenges 

“That’s a great question. Like many businesses, we started small and on a shoestring budget. One of our early challenges was getting the word out about what we were doing and how we were different. At the time, there were only a few music marketing agencies around. That’s changed, of course, over the years! We got our foot in the door, and most of our business has grown through referrals. Clients who are happy with our work passed the word, and surprisingly I’ve done very little marketing over the years for my own companies! My parents were both very savvy business people, and they had a simple idea they used in their businesses: charge a fair price and deliver the best possible service with a smile. We’ve stuck by that simple idea, and our clients have helped to spread the word about what we do.”

Most Successful Campaigns that Jonas Music Services has Launched and What made them Successful

“I’m proud of our white-label work and its impact. Through our professional partnerships, we can provide marketing services in a white-label capacity for other marketing companies & music industry professionals. We connected with market leaders in certain areas and expanded our offering to service their businesses. The secret to those campaigns was active listening. Hearing what companies needed and coming up with innovative solutions.”

Metrics Used to Measure the Success of a Campaign

“There are many different ways to monitor campaign success, and the right measure of success depends on the client’s current, honest business position. If it’s a startup or a poorly branded organization, a branding campaign will be critical so you can build some accurate customer recognition. You’ll be looking more at impressions, website visits, page views, and social reach and growth numbers there. That’s the foundation. You’ll look more at ROI, cost per lead, conversion, and engagement numbers for a well-branded organization. I’ve learned over the years a lot of my clients think their company is more branded than it is. I’ve even seen other agencies skip the critical early steps and promise their customers conversions they can’t deliver (which never goes well). I usually encourage clients to study the consumer journey from brand awareness to lead generation. Many of our clients want to jump to the lead generation immediately, but developing exposure, influence, and engagement is critical to getting to conversion and profit. Depending on the stage of a campaign, we may celebrate impressions, reach, or network growth in the early phases and celebrate ROAS and CCPAs later.”

Company Culture and How it Contributes to the Company’s Success

“As I mentioned, we’re very family-focused and community-focused. Our True Change Marketing division makes a 5% charity donation on each new project we start. Clients get to choose their charities when they create accounts, and once a year, we collect that data and make our donations. Jonas Music Services also has a social arm where we donate profits to support several charities, including the Humane Society of the United States, Mercy Corps, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Our culture tries to be kind to each other and nurture that relationship in our connection with others we work with.”

Significant Industry Trends Impacting the Marketing Industry and How Jonas Music Services Adapts to Those Changes

“That’s another terrific question. Content marketing has become front and center for many businesses, and we’re helping to drive that home for our clients through our work in blogging, video, social, and podcast support. Interactive marketing is also an excellent tool y to rate when possible. Assessments, surveys, calculators, and informally help position our clients as industry knowledge leaders and drive CTA campaigns. AI is another prominent player. There isn’t any way to ignore that AI is increasing at a mind-blowing rate, and there isn’t any reason clients shouldn’t use technology to their advantage. We are just about to introduce an AI component to our website blogs to help our clients quickly and effectively produce well-written content. It can also be a valuable tool for social media where high-quality content is critical too.”

Jonas Music Services Stays Ahead of the Competition by Constantly Innovating and Leveraging Technology

“We stay abreast of new technology and its trends. But a lot of change isn’t about a new gadget or tool; it’s about understanding how clients change. As technology changes, the way clients search, the hashtags, and the workflow in their companies shift. Keeping an eye on efficiency and listening is how you solve your client’s problems.

Social champ has been a great tool to help us better serve our clients. We love the way you guys integrated AI; it made it easy for clients to approve or even edit the posts we create so we keep their message on brand, and we find the social champ platform streamlines our content creation and increases our efficiency.”

Advice from Jonas Music Services for Anyone Starting a Marketing Agency Today

“A big part of any new business is about relationships, growing, and keeping them. I’ve seen many clients leave vendors who are doing a fine job because they were unhappy with the connection (myself included). We’ve reached a point where all this technology can make the user experience cold and distant. How many websites have 1-800 number letters in the corner anymore? Most businesses don’t want calls, and they don’t want to talk to their clients. They’ve got chat boxes that don’t connect you to humans but suggest silly articles you can read that won’t answer your question; we’ve got trouble tickets a mile long with days-long delays. Good luck getting to a human! We make it easy to call us, and while we may need an appointment to talk for an hour, we’ve always got somebody taking calls at our companies, and setting up an appointment with us is as easy. Talking to clients is essential, which would be my advice to somebody starting today. Be accessible, kind, and be human.”

Future Plans for Jonas Music Services

“We are actually in the process of developing a new social media offering for our small business clients. We are partnering with Officially Social to offer social media industry-specific content calendars to small businesses that need to leverage the power of social media but need more money for a full-service agency. These are complete with artwork, content, hashtags, and even TikTok videos! They can access an industry-specific content calendar with beautiful, creative posts for every day of the month (3-day & 5-day calendars available) and download the position they want to use. They can customize the content and post directly to their accounts or use it in their social media scheduler like a champ! We expect to launch this in July 2023.”

Social Champ wishes Ann and the team at Jonas Music Services the best of luck in all future endeavors.